The present invention relates to a safety restraining system for restraining an occupant of a vehicle, and more particularly to an improved tongue assembly for use with child seats.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,398,997 discloses at least one variety of child seat safety restraining system using a five point webbing harness system to restrain the occupant within the seat. In this system, there are cooperable dual tongues disposed on each of the left and right webbings. Each of the tongues is received in a single buckle positioned between the legs of an occupant.
An example of prior art dual tongues is shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. Right tongue 31 includes a latch plate 52, web connection portion 55, and a substantially planar front surface 53. The web connection portion 55 defines a slot 56 extending from the front to the back. As known in the art, slot 56 is disposed at approximately a 45.degree. angle with respect to longitudinal axis 49 of latch plate 52. The angle of slot 56 facilitates the transition of web 16 between shoulder portion 18 and lap portion 20. Opposing left tongue 33 includes latch plate 54, a web connection portion 71, and a substantially planar front surface 57. The web connection portion 71 defines slot 72 adapted to receive a web. Again, slot 72 is angled with respect to the latch plate axis to facilitate the transition between the web shoulder portion 24 and the lap portion 26.
The prior art dual tongues may be used with a five point harness system such as that shown in FIG. 3. Right web 16 extends through slot 56 with an upper shoulder portion 18 above the slot and a lower lap portion 20 below the slot. Similarly, left web 22 extends through slot 72 of left tongue 33 with an upper shoulder portion 24 above the slot and a lower lap portion 26 below the slot.
As shown in FIG. 2, a cross-section taken along section line 2--2 of FIG. 1, as webbing 16 extends through slot 56 in tongue 31, tongue 31 tends to rotate away from webbing shoulder portion 18. Specifically, longitudinal axis 21 of tongue 31 is skewed with respect to longitudinal axis 17 of shoulder portion 18. This is shown by the angle 19 generated between shoulder portion 18 and tongue 31. When latch plate 52 is received in a buckle (not shown) the web can be forced to lay along longitudinal axis 21 of the tongue. However, when latch plate 52 is disconnected from a buckle, there is nothing to counteract the force of the webbing extending through slot 56 tending to rotate the tongue. Thus, tongue 31 typically rotates with respect to the web when latch plate 52 is not engaged with a buckle.
Rotation of the tongue with respect to the webbing in a child seat harness causes at least two problems that, although not affecting safety, may frustrate the user. Specifically, it will be appreciated that as the tongue rotates with respect to the webbing, the webbing may move more freely through slot 56. This permits the tongue to slide down the web until it contacts the bottom of the seat or some other structure. Thus, each time the seat is used, the user may be required to readjust the tongue to the previous position. Additionally, the web shoulder portion 16 tends to run substantially parallel to the back of the seat. Therefore, when the tongue rotates with respect to the web shoulder portion, it tends to extend outwardly from the rear of the seat. This presents a difficulty in child seats where the bottom is folded with respect to the back to form a folded storage configuration.
Therefore, there remains a need for a tongue assembly that is cooperable with a child seat restraining system to provide a convenient mechanism for maintaining the tongue in substantial alignment with the shoulder portion of the webbing to assist in maintaining the position of the tongue and to make folding of foldable seats more convenient.